Ex-deputy will get 18 years after detainees drown in locked van

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- A deputy in South Carolina whose police van was swept away by floodwaters within the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, drowning two girls in search of mental well being treatment trapped in a cage in the back was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in jail.

A Marion County jury discovered former Horry County deputy Stephen Flood guilty of two counts of involuntary manslaughter and two counts of reckless murder.

Judges ordered Wendy Newton, 45, and Nicolette Green, 43, to be involuntarily dedicated the day they died in September 2018, but their families said they weren't violent. Newton was only seeking medicine for her fear and nervousness and Green’s family stated she was committed to a mental facility at a daily mental well being appointment by a counselor she had never seen before.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the verdict and after a number of family members of the women mentioned his determination to press forward with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix hole in their lives.

“This was a deliberate act set in movement by a pompous, stubborn man,” Inexperienced's sister Donnela Green-Johnson advised the judge. “He abused the belief my sister, Nikki, Wendy and the state of South Carolina entrusted him with. And for what? To save time.”

Circuit Courtroom Decide William Seales sentenced Flood to 5 years in prison on each involuntary manslaughter charge and four years on every reckless homicide cost and ordered the sentences served back-to-back.

The floodwaters swept the police van off its wheels in September 2018 and pinned it in opposition to a guardrail, stopping the women from being able to get out the sliding door they used to enter the van. Flood and a deputy with him didn't have a key to a second door and there was no emergency escape hatch, in accordance with testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies mentioned they spoke to the women and tried to keep them calm for about an hour because the water stored rising earlier than it obtained too harmful and rescuers might no longer hear them.

“How terrible must which have been to take a seat there and wait to your personal dying?” Solicitor Ed Clements said in his closing argument Thursday.

While other elements like an emergency radio that didn't notify rescuers of the van's exact location contributed to the deaths, Clements mentioned the drownings all came out of Flood’s reckless determination to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by way of water.

Nationwide guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Highway 76 just exterior Nichols, but Flood drove round them after briefly talking to the soldiers.

Clements learn from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like once he was in the water, he could not turn round as a result of he might now not see the sting of the freeway and was anxious about running into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Possibly it wounded his pleasure or stubbornness. I don’t know. He pushed ahead into water that was not just standing in a tall puddle, but it was rushing, crossing the guardrail. All of it was the Little Pee Dee River by then,” Clements said.

Flood's lawyer said while it was a horrible tragedy, others were trying to unfairly blame simply the former deputy instead of the tools issues, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was starting and despatched him even though taking the ladies to the mental health amenities was not an emergency.

"I ask that you just resist the urge to attempt to give justice to these two women by giving injustice to this good man," protection lawyer Jarrett Bouchette stated. “They wish to make him a scapegoat for this accident.”

Flood did not testify, but before he was sentenced instructed the decide he tried all the pieces he could to keep the women calm because the waters rose and assist was sluggish to arrive.

“It was a series of errors on my half and different those that led me to that point and I’m sorry for what occurred to the ladies,” Flood stated.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, have been finally rescued from the highest of the transport van, authorities said. Bishop will stand trial for two counts of involuntary manslaughter at a later date.

They tried to shoot the locks off the second door, but it surely nonetheless wouldn't open. The delay in getting help was pricey too. A firefighter testified they have been in a position to reduce the roof off the van and started working on the cage, however the water received higher and quicker and it was too harmful to proceed.

Newton's son Charles mentioned he hated that Flood had to study to follow the foundations and use common sense at such a steep price.

“I can forgive, but I can not overlook. Thankfully, I still bear in mind my mother as a happy woman, a joyful woman who beloved her household," he said. “But you, Mr. Flood, will keep in mind my mom by hearing her screams behind that van."

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Observe Jeffrey Collins on Twitter at https://twitter.com/JSCollinsAP.